Buying Time to Steal the Stars
by Matthew Talbain
Summary: Sly has accepted a new mission, one which will change the way he views himself, his gang, and even the world. Rescuing a vixen, stealing confidential alien aircraft from a tyrannical facility....what's a Master Thief to do when he has to save the world?
1. Prologue: Earthbound

_Buying Time to Steal the Stars_

A Sly Cooper x-over

by Matthew Talbain

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or settings within this story unless otherwise noted.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: What's this?! A non-Ranma fanfic?! What's -wrong- with me?! And yes, this fic assumes quite a few liberties, specifically about character ages. Sorry, but it's very necessary for plot-points.

**--Prologue: Earthbound--**

Blood pounded in his ears, drowning out the mandrill's threats, as the cannon swiveled, aiming at the one person he'd never forgive himself for losing. Almost without direction, his booted feet slapped the ground, closing the distance between himself and the vixen standing there like a deer trapped in the headlights of a Mack truck. He felt himself dive, pushing her aside as his momentum carried him into the cannon's path. He distantly heard himself crying 'Not her!' as he regained his feet.

Then there was nothing but pain and chaos. He felt the miniature explosion ripple against his right side, saw the ceiling in the vault growing closer and closer, but it was staggered. Everything was like a strobe light on its slowest setting, or a badly-animated cartoon. He never felt the impact of the catwalk, he only knew he'd succeeded. He'd saved her, given her another chance. His only regret was that he'd thrown away his own last chance, the chance to tell her how he really, truly felt. Even as he felt the blood pouring from his side, from his lips, he felt resolve filling him. He would tell her.

A second explosion rippled through the vault, loosening some of the rock wall above him, and his last vision, as his eyes closed almost assuredly for the last time, was a spired boulder growing closer.

* * *

"No!"

He sat upright, ignoring the twinge of pain in his right side, his motion hampered by the tight jumpsuit he was wearing. His breathing was labored, the sounds around him muffled, yet sharp. He felt a hand rest on his shoulder, shivered quietly as he looked up at the figure next to him, wearing a similar jumpsuit as he did. His hearing returned to him quickly as he shook the sleep from his brain, alerting him to the spiking ring of his new binocucom and the whine of the afterburners of the aircraft he occupied. He pressed the accept button, raising the binocucom as he shared a nod with his well-concealed deckmate.

"What's up, Bent?"

"Sly, your vitals just spiked! Are you okay, buddy? You haven't jumped yet, we can still reschedule."

The raccoon grimaced quietly as he rested his left hand over his right side. The offer was very, very tempting. It had only been a month, after all, since Bentley had saved him from the falling ceiling in the vault and got him back to the group. A month since he'd last seen Carmelita. He could be recovering at one of their Paris safehouses, staking out the Interpol vixen's apartment, telling her of his revelation in that last meeting.

His eyes settled on the male next to him. Apart from the obviously vulpine tail poking from the back of his black jumpsuit and the sunglasses perched to cover the eyes of his face mask, he was a complete mystery. He was nervous, thought; excited. This was important to him. Sly gritted his teeth and shook his head quietly.

"No, Bentley. We have to do it now. The world's premiere master thief can't lose his edge, now, can he?"

He smirked half-heartedly, knowing his friend on the other end was grimacing to himself with worry.

"All right, Sly. Just be careful; those nanites aren't going to magically fix you, y'know. When you get back, you're getting rest."

Sly smiled and nodded. He was glad his friend was so concerned, especially since the machines in his blood were keeping track of his vitals even as they worked at repairing the damaged tissues in his right side. He switched off the binocucom and looked over at the masked fox next to him.

"Who are you, anyway? What's so important about this heist?"

The man just canted his head in Sly's direction before he unbuckled himself and stood up, hooking himself to a bar moving across the top of the aircraft's cabin.

"Call me 'Fox'. That's what we agreed upon when you decided to take on the job. As to why this is so important, this isn't a heist. I need your help conducting a -rescue-, Johnathan Sylvester Conner Cooper. Get up; we're nearly above Broom Lake."

Sly was taken aback, but did as instructed. This man had continued to surprise him, something extraordinarily hard to do, since Sly had agreed to accept his first commissioned 'heist'. To learn that said heist was a -rescue- did, indeed, make this job a bit more interesting, and a bit more urgent. But to know that this man knew his -full name-...

Not even Bentley knew his full name.

Sly shook it off, ignoring the throbbing in his side as he hooked on, pulling on his parachuting gear and locking it onto the bar. He and Fox shuffled down to the jump door, and Sly began to take deep breaths to prepare himself for the jump. He knocked on the door twice, and got a muffled 'Okay!' from a familiar voice: Murray had decided to become their pilot, as well as their driver. It was a bit of a reassurance to Sly. After all, if it had wheels and some way to steer, Murray was the master.

The green light came on, and Fox leapt. After a second, the light came on again, and Sly found himself in free fall. He angled himself using the flaps on his jumpsuit to get closer to the man that had leapt before him, catching up slowly. He pulled on his own mask, activating the short-band radio used only for close-distance communications. Almost immediately, he heard Fox's voice in his ears.

"Alright, then, Cooper. We're gonna open low, otherwise these guys might see us coming. We're gonna hit the ground hard, cut our wires, and run like hell. There's an automatic pistol in your harness; you are going to have to use it."

Sly felt the blood drain from his face. All of his life, he'd managed to go without taking any life other than Clockwerk and Neyla, and he'd never lost any sleep because of the evil that bastard owl had been responsible for and the duplicity, the selfishness the tigress exuded. But now, he was being told to use a weapon created with lethal intent. He didn't think he could do it at all.

"I...I can't. I can't kill innocent people, not even guards!"

He heard a low chuckle coming over his comm and canted his head at the free-falling fox nearby.

"Listen, Cooper. All I can tell you about myself is that I used to make a... temporary residence here. That's why I called you, how I get my information. I have a source on the inside. Believe me on this; the men and women that carry weapons in this facility are all criminals, all worse even than your man, Clockwerk. They -need- to die."

Sly still wasn't reassured, but decided to shelf his worries, for now. He wasn't certain he'd even have to pull the trigger. He had his cane, after all. He was shocked out of his internal monologue when he noticed Fox reach for the ripcord over his heart, and repeated the action. As one, they jerked in their harnesses as their parachutes opened above them.

It was only fifteen seconds before they slammed into the ground. Sly winced as he pulled out a bootknife and began to slice the wires connected to his harness, dropping the parachute's carrier to the ground as he tried to work some feeling back into his legs. He followed Fox across the concrete ground, wondering why there were no sirens, no alarms or alerts, as Fox yanked open an access panel in the side of a building and disappeared.

* * *

It was cold as they found their way into what appeared to be an employee break room, apart from the manacle hooks on the legs of the chairs. Fox stood at the door, refusing to remove his jumpsuit and harness even as Sly removed his mask and replaced it with his trademark French cap. He bent down and tied on his crimson thigh-bag for his 'acquisitions' and rested his cane over his shoulder, nodding quietly to himself as he adjusted his suit for optimum motion.

"Alright, Sly. We need to get down to level seventeen, but the elevator will only take us to level fifteen. For security purposes, they've attached a second ventilation system independent of the upper floors to the fifteenth level in the elevator shaft. That's our way in, and that's where we'll need the guns."

Sly looked at Fox awkwardly before nodding, deciding that, like always, there was a reason they couldn't just take the stairs. Besides, it made things more fun this way. There was more than likely a security scanner in the hallways, and if he remembered correctly, military facilities never grouped elevators near stairs for just such security purposes. And if there was a section of the base that required its own ventilation systems attacked directly to an elevator shaft, it more than likely meant that something was going on downstairs that didn't need to risk being carried to the upper floors. Especially if someone was going 'shoot-to-kill' for the lower floors.

"Why are there manacle slots on these chairs?"

Fox just looked at Sly and pulled out his own weapon, slipping a cartridge into the magazine chamber.

"The scientists that work here are all kidnapped from around the world. They don't want them leaving. Don't hurt them, any of them, and they won't give us away."

Suddenly, the rescue idea seemed much more plausible to the raccoon, and, with a scowl and a grimace, he slipped a cartridge into his own weapon, holstering it at the small of his back as Fox cleared the hallway and gave him a thumbs up.

The trip to the elevator was uneventful, save for an instant where Fox pulled a photograph out of the pouch at his own thigh and attached it to a curious clip. He waited a moment, gazing at a red light on the side of a camera in the elevator before it blinked for a moment, signaling a break in the camera's circuit, and the man clipped the photograph in front of the camera's lens. Sly's estimation of the man rose; he was a clever thief.

"C'mon, we've got to get to the fifteenth floor. There's a vent about level with the top of the elevator, so we're gonna ride the top of this thing. The picture's because that camera's circuit resets after only six seconds; not even you could open the hatch and get out before you were spotted. And don't answer your binocucom; any incoming communications will be intercepted and reveal our location. Come on, let's move."

Sly nodded and stepped up onto the handrail, punching the emergency exit open and waiting for the elevator to start moving, giving him room to move on top. Within seconds, his hand was extending to accept Fox's and pull him up onto the roof, but not before the man reached over and unclipped the photograph at another break in the circuit.

"Never know when someone's going to get on this thing."

Sly tried his hardest to think of a witty come-back, but his injury, the nanites, and this mission itself were disconcerting him. Not to mention he had a lethal weapon holstered at his back. He settled for helping the man up and preparing himself for the hasty exit from their current ride.

They rode quietly for a few minutes, Fox handing Sly a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. The raccoon accepted them quietly, cracking his neck. If he could stand up, he'd be shifting his weight nervously. He never worked in such absolute silence before, not really. He'd always been able to consult Bentley in the middle of a mission. He didn't like the feeling, not at all.

In short order, the two were crawling down a ventilation shaft, with Fox in front, leading Sly through twists and turns that would have caught anyone less slim and limber than the two shadows that crawled through. Sly realized, almost all at once, that they were passing through numerous junctions, and Fox seemed to know exactly which way to turn each and every time.

He'd only just opened his mouth when he was forced to click it shut audibly, the man before him finding a space to shift positions, sliding legs first through an access panel in the 'floor' of the shaft. Sly followed quickly and realized they were crawling vertically, now, down two levels of shafts, before they were crawling on their stomachs once again. Fox stopped and snapped his fingers, holding his hand back behind his tail. Sly nodded and passed up the pliers and screwdriver, waiting as patiently as a man with his level of energy could. It was only a minute before Fox was flowing through the ventilation door he'd just opened, closely followed by the master thief. Sly dropped to the floor and used his cane to scratch a tiny little mark on the edge of the grate, shaped like a 'C', before using the crook of the cane to settle the grate back on the edges of the hole.

They moved quickly down the hallway, their weapons drawn, as they found only white coats walking around, all of them manacled by electronic shackles. Fox made directly for one, curiously a raccoon, who just pointed down one hallway and held up three fingers. Fox turned and grabbed Sly's wrist.

"Sly, they're holding our objective in a lab room three doors down that hallway. You move; I'm going for the command center to unlock all of these manacles. After we save all of these people, there's a hangar connected to this level. That's our exit. We have to concert our actions, so I'll be on the short-band."

Sly nodded and lowered himself into his familiar crouching walk, passing by two of the doors as he checked the safety of his weapon. He heard the chirp of the short-band in his ears as he reached the third door, noticing a large window immediately next to the door. He heard Fox say that he was getting into position just as he peeked over the window to get a glimpse of the inside chambers.

"Hurry up, Fox! They've got needles in her!"

It was a blue-furred vixen, strapped to a table with two needles, one in either arm. Sly studied them for a moment before he saw three separate bottles on a tray next to the table. He gasped quietly. The bottles were three different compounds; sodium thiopental, pancuronium, and potassium chloride.

"Fox! It's a lethal injection procedure, are these windows bulletproof?!"

The one syllable that saved the girl's life could be heard over the short-band, seemingly resonating 'No.' in Sly's ears for a lifetime before he stood and, without thinking, raised his pistol, using his thief's reflexes to speed his perception of time to take in the situation. Two armed guards, one with his back directly against the window and one standing closer to the table, were ordering a single scientist to grab the sodium thiopental and inject it into her IV saline drip. Sly raised his weapon, firing a slug through the glass into the guard next to the table. Without waiting a single second, he turned his gun on the one next to the window, only just raising his weapon and beginning to turn as Sly's second round entered his cranial cavity.

Sly leapt through the window and used his cane as leverage on the scientist's manacles, freeing the woman swiftly.

"Unlock her. Let her go."

The girl was out of it, clad only in a white shift for the purposes of the scientist's modesty over her own, and Sly swiftly determined that his sweater would cover the necessities. He shook the girl softly as the scientist removed some keys from one of the guards and began unlocking the girl's manacles. Sly stood guard, an alarm beginning to blare from far down the hall. When the scientist, a female wolf, nodded softly and thanked Sly, the raccoon nodded and raised his weapon to the opened window.

"Reach in my backpack; there's a blue sweater there. Take it out and give it to the girl; never let it be said that Sly Cooper kept a girl naked any longer than necessary."

He winked at the wolf, who blushed softly and set about getting some smelling salts to awaken the poor vixen on the table. In short order, the girl was waking up to the sight of a man standing over her, his back to her, with a weapon raised to the window. She cocked her head softly and smiled gratefully as the woman next to her handed her a blue sweater. The wolf whispered something she couldn't understand, but the way she was pointing at the man and smiling at him, he was a savior, her hero.

She stood up and tugged on Sly's sleeve, wobbling softly. Sly steadied her and climbed out of the window just as Fox came running down the hall. Without waiting, he picked the blue vixen up and seemed to sigh in relief. Sly could have sworn he heard a 'Thank God it's not him..." come from the fox, but he turned and looked at the scientist.

"Get out of here, cutie. This place is hell on your hair."

He winked again and looked at his 'partner', who was settling the girl in his arms down and murmuring to her in a language Sly didn't recognize. Fox looked up at the raccoon.

"C'mon, Cooper. We've got to get to the hangar. I'm out of bullets; it's your show, now."

Fox ran down the hall without waiting for an answer, and Sly pushed the memory of putting two living, breathing animal beings out of their lives down, running after the man. They ran amidst a crowd of white coats, all headed for the hangar, some of them bearing knife and gunshot wounds, and almost all of them carried weapons that Sly recognized as belonging to the guards.

There was little else eventful as they pushed into the hangar, Sly taking the collection of foreign and American fighters undergoing reverse engineering in the facility. He gasped as he took in one aircraft, however. It was an anomaly; it was a sleek, futuristic craft with a single seat, swept-back wings, and four cyan protrusions extending above and below each wing. Fox seemed to grit his teeth as he saw the craft and put the girl down on her feet, running for the aircraft and leaping in. He reached in and pulled a single lever, opening a hatch under the nose of the ship, and he beckoned for Sly and the girl.

"It's been a while since I flew one of these. Sly, is there anywhere you know of where we can set this thing down and have a safe, large facility to work in?"

Sly gritted his teeth as a fresh memory flogged him as Fox helped the girl into the hatch, which was apparently a very roomy cargo area. He wondered for a moment what the man meant when he said it'd been a while since he flew one of these things, but didn't comment as he nodded. He handed the binocucom to Fox.

"Call Bentley, tell him to give you directions and coordinates for my family's ranch in Tennessee. "

Fox nodded and helped Sly into the cargo hold of the futuristic, almost obviously alien ship, then disappeared for a moment. When he reappeared, he exchanged a few of those unfamiliar words with the girl before handing her a bag. She looked into the bag and spoke with a questioning tone, the man just shook his head and closed the hatch. The whine of engines could be heard, and then, there was the sensation of flying and falling at the same time.

* * *

The girl studied the raccoon in front of her quietly as she ruffled through the back. She blushed and pulled several articles of clothes out and looked at the raccoon meaningfully. He nodded and turned around, blinking as he heard the fox shuffling behind him. In a matter of moments, she tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and had to stop himself from gasping aloud.

She was stunning, simply put. She was dressed in a tight blue jumpsuit, one she seemed to be very comfortable in, and the way it hugged her every curve, Sly could believe it belonged to nobody but her. She was wearing a number of tribal decorations in her hair, and was rubbing her arms where the needles had been. Around her neck was a curious choker, and Sly decided to see if she was as foreign as he thought.

"Hello, there. I'm Sly, Sly Cooper. Can you understand me?"

The girl blushed and nodded softly, coughing quietly. Her lips didn't quite seem to match her words, however.

"I can understand you, yes. My name is Krystal. Thank you for saving me."

He smiled softly and turned to ask her something else when he noticed she was still a little out of it. He balled up his sweater, which she'd left on his shoulder when she tapped him, and held it out to her.

"Here. Use this as a pillow, get some sleep. It might be a while before we get where we're going, Krystal."

The girl smiled gratefully, tears welling up in her eyes as she nodded and lay down, curling up and crying quietly as she fell asleep. It had been such a rough week. First, that black hole, then the dogfight near that red planet with those ape-like ships that had followed her, then her rough landing in that desert, and finally her imprisonment. Now that she felt just a little safe, she could allow herself to cry.

Sly settled in and watched the girl's emotions on her face. He felt the craft land, far quicker than he'd expected, especially considering he felt none of the gravity force he'd expected to feel with a flight in a craft this sleek. He climbed out as the hatch opened, expecting to see desert. He gaped as he saw his great-great-great grandfather's ranch spreading out before him, an open barn door framing his field of reference as the retractable ceiling his father had had installed for some of the Cooper family personal aircraft finished closing up. Fox was climbing down the ladder attached to the side of the sleek ship, a grin creasing the mask under his muzzle and a slim, rectangular box-like computer tucked under his arm.

"It's been so damn long since I flew one of these."

Sly simply continued to gape at the barn around him before shaking himself out of his reverie for what seemed to be the millionth time that day. He looked over at Fox, cocking an eyebrow as he reached up into the cargo hold to retrieve the sleeping Krystal, as well as his sweater.

"Love to see your airline miles at work. You get the Triple-A platinum discount?"

Ah, finally! He'd managed something in close proximity to his usual dry wet. It still left him feeling a bit out of it, but restored some semblance of order to his churning, chaotic mind.

"Ha! I wish. Especially with one of these. Nah, I don't have time to explain right now. I've got to get this thing hooked up to a computer. Oh, by the way; this thing's in shit-shape. Don't even breathe on it, I want Bentley to look it up and see if he can do anything about replicating it."

Sly blinked at that. Shit shape? He took it in and blinked owlishly. It looked pristine! Apart from the carbon scoring on the wings, the blue extensions, and just about every inch of the silver body, the fact that every bolt seemed to be vibrating with the strain of holding itself together, and the one wing that happened to fall off at that moment...

Sly reassessed his opinion. It was in shit-shape. He turned and beckoned Fox to follow him, his mind finally reasserting itself as he opened followed a small, worn track to the main ranch house, a refurbished mansion on par with most Texas ranches. Opening the door with the crook of his cane, the only key to most of the Cooper clan properties, he led Fox in and pointed to a small door to their right.

"That's the den. Bentley's got a few computers in there, the black one with the mask insignia on the tower is my PC. Use the guest account."

With that, he carried the girl up the cliche double stairwell. He took a moment to take in the house's furnishings, rather pleased that the stairwell was the only obvious sign of grandiosity. The house didn't even have chandeliers. Sly smiled quietly as he remembered the various accounts and holdings listed in the Thievius Raccoonus, and the lack of personal greed each one he'd visited had shown. He knew, deep in his heart, that while stealing was inherently wrong, at least nobody in his family line had stolen for themselves.

He lay the girl down in bed, the latest affirmation that his life's choice after his father's death had proven the right decision to make. He quietly tucked her into bed, taking a quiet note to have Bentley check her out soon. As he made his way downstairs, slowly stripping himself of his harness, he sat upon the stairs before electing to take a shower.

After his brief shower, he dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a sweater, preferring to remain barefoot when not out on a job. His trademark cap was left on a bed in his own bedroom, as was the jumpsuit. He figured that he'd likely be remaining here for a while. The man in his den, after all, was quite the enigma, as was the ship he'd piloted seemingly effortlessly, and Sly, being the master thief he was, absolutely hated leaving an enigma unsolved unless it was himself.

A master thief had to have his secrets, after all.

He felt himself getting hungry and made his way to the kitchen downstairs, opposite the hall of the den. Rather leery of the cooking equipment, he settled with fixing himself a bowl of instant ramen, a staple of his when Murray, the only member of his little gang that could actually create something recognizable -and- edible, was gone. This reflection didn't sit well with him, something that he had been realizing about most of his habits for the long month his recovery had taken.

Oh, certainly, he was no slob, at least by the standards of most bachelors. Whenever he was alone, that is, whenever Murray and Bentley were gone, whatever pad he occupied at the time was quite clean. However, it irked him that he was almost dependent on his two friends for a life. That was something that he'd realized a long time ago, immediately after the Clock-La incident. Bentley had been broken nearly in two by the foul resurrection of the Cooper clan's ultimate nemesis, and Murray had gotten out of the ordeal covered in bruises and scratches on top of suffering the existential crisis and guilt that had led him to seek the help of the Guru.

Sly had been forced to live alone for several months before Bentley had recovered, and even then, it had been another several months as he and his turtle friend went about their way recruiting new members for their gang of thieves for the Kaine Island job. During that time, Sly had found himself utterly bored, and that particular thought left a bad taste in his mouth. Was he anything without thievery, without the rush of the chase and the satisfaction of a job well done? Even so, he'd never resorted to simple burglary. No, everything he did was for a reason.

The Fire Stone of India, the report about his own gang, the pieces of Clockwerk, everything he'd ever stolen in his life had an altruistic or necessary undertone. Hell, even the Bavarian chocolate had stolen hadn't actually been stolen. He'd paid an almost inexorbitant amount of money for that bar of chocolate under his one legal identity, and even more to have it placed in the Munich museum. 'stole' it from himself in transit. That particular 'heist' had been a reassurance that he and his gang hadn't lost any of their edge and cohesion as a group following their separation. That, and Sly actually had the chance to work on Chapter XVII of the Thievius Raccoonus, always a plus, in his book.

Still, his one recourse in his moment of boredom between jobs was a -job-. It was a depressing realization that his life had, until his injury, been consciously centered around two things. Heists and his gang. The Kaine incident had given rise to a third, much more alluring center: Carmelita. The one constant in his life of crime besides Murray and Bentley had been the fire-eyed, azure-haired, venom-spitting vixen that kept Sly on his toes at all times. It was a beyond-welcome realization, but it disconcerted him that the only reason he even knew her was because of his crimes, no matter how altruistic they were.

He sighed quietly as he finished his instant soup and tucked into a sandwich before deciding to head to the gym located under and behind the grand stairwell. He smiled at that thought; only a Cooper would have a training hall where most socialites at the time would have a grand ballroom. For a moment, Sly felt a brief burst of affection and pride that 'Tennessee Kid' Cooper was -his- great-great-great-great-great grandfather, and still they shared similar tastes. He meandered into the main hallway and peeked into the den, where Fox had removed his mask, though his sunglasses remained perched on his nose and thus removed most chance of identification from Sly's current angle.

"Hey, Fox. I'm gonna be in the training hall, it's through the doors on either side of the grand staircase, bottom floor."

Without waiting for a reply, he walked through the main hall and into the dojo, where he immediately stripped off his shirt and rolled up his tight jeans so that he could move more freely, opting to do without his cane. He needed a hobby besides thievery, and though he knew he could charm just about any girl out of her engagement ring, he wasn't that kind of man, and certainly didn't desire to lose the last bit of his innocence to anything less than a life-long love.

So he turned to martial arts. He wrapped some tape around his forearms, wrists, and most of each hand before he began pounding at every bag and target within the gym, often rolling or leaping from one to another. Apart from the pain in his side, he was completely lost in the activity, allowing lessons long-since past and his eidetic memory of the section of the Thievius Raccoonus recorded by his ancestor Rioichi to flood his body's muscle memory.

Fox was in the room shouting for ten minutes before he decided to walk up and slap the raccoon to get his attention. He received an elbow to the gut that doubled him over before Sly felt himself stopping, a blush spreading across his silver-gray cheeks.

"Uh...sorry, there, Fox. What's up?"

The fox just glared up at Sly, surprisingly effectively considering the ever-present shades hiding his eyes from view. He collected himself and stood up, coughing quietly as he looked the raccoon in the eyes.

"It's much, much more serious than I thought. At first, I'd just thought of having Bentley rebuild and duplicate the ship out there as a bit of a hobby, and a challenge for all of us to keep us busy and out of trouble while the warrants on -your- head expire. Now, I -need- that turtle to replicate the technology of that ship -flawlessly- and improve on it!"

Sly was dumbfounded and lost for words. Mentally kicking himself for being taken aback yet again by the mysterious figure standing before him, he rested his hands on the obviously-agitated fox's shoulders, trying to calm the man down somewhat, with limited success. At least he wasn't pacing anymore, anyway.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy, there, hombre. Tell me what's going on, why do we need Bentley to reproduce that pile of crap in my barn?"

The fox took a deep, deep breath before nodding once and looking Sly in the eyes, or at least seeming to.

"Alright. I'm gonna need you and your gang, -all- of your gang, for this one, so I need you guys to trust me like I was your best damn friend. To that end, I'm going to have to tell you a little story. You have a partition between your bathroom and a changing room, here?"

Sly nodded, getting where the man was going with this, and showed him the way to the still-warm shower. Fox thanked him and immediately shut the door between the bathroom and the changing room, a common theme for a Cooper's permanent residence since the days of Sly's Japanese ancestor. Sly ignored the sound of the man stripping and listened solely to his voice.

"Alright, kid. About twenty-five years ago, an aircraft similar to the one in your barn crash-landed in rural Spain. The pilot made it out safely with his flight recorder before the craft exploded. Because its particular energy source had been breached and caused the explosion, not a damn thing was left except the pilot and his little black box. That pilot wasn't flying an experimental craft, he was an extraterrestrial. The whole thing was reported as a meteor strike, and everybody believed it, save one woman. The pilot had been almost fatally injured prior to the crash, and was found near-death by that very woman before the plane exploded."

The sounds of water began, and Sly tried extremely hard to purge the thought of this man in his shower with limited success until he replaced the man's image with that of Carmelita. It took a second before Sly realized Fox was talking again.

"Now, let's go back a bit, to the beginning of this little story. In a place called the Lylat System, this pilot was the leader of a crack team of ace mercenary pilots, a three-fighter group calling themselves 'Star Fox'. There wasn't a damn thing those three couldn't do when it came to fighter craft. They were the most highly-sought after mercenary group, and they never took missions that weren't on the up-and-up. They were most frequently hired by the commander-in-chief of Lylat's capitol world, Corneria, a bloodhound with a highly-developed sense of honor and justice."

Sly almost rolled his eyes at that one. He couldn't see such a man hiring mercenaries, no matter how altruistic they were.

"Well, about thirty years ago, General Pepper had exiled a whack-job scientist by the name of Andross to an inhospitable planet in the system by the name of Venom. He'd apparently been experimenting with explosives or something in his lust for power and destroyed a large portion of Corneria's capitol city. For five years, nothing was heard of the bastard, but then signs of life and activity began to show up on the surface of Venom. Star Fox was hired to investigate and deal with the situation."

The sounds of the water shutting off and a towel being removed broke the monologue briefly.

"It was an easy mission, or it should have been. Our boy's left wingman, however, had decided to take a payday from Andross and shot down our pilot during an ambush he'd set up before turning on the right wingman. The traitor, Pigma, then carted our boy, unconscious and still in his fighter, to Andross' main facility on Venom. They used a refined version of the experiment that had destroyed Corneria City's industrial district on him, still in his jet, as a form of revenge. It was a black hole, but not as you know it. It was a wormhole, and against all odds, it led right to the Solar System, ejecting our pilot into space at a great enough velocity to put him right on course with Earth."

The door opened, revealing the fox, but not as Sly knew him. Instead of the jumpsuit, he was wearing a white blazer over a green zippered combat suit. A red scarf was wrapped around his neck, and a belt with a triangular gold buckle was tied securely around the green combat trousers he wore tucked into a pair of heavy metal combat boots. His sunglasses were still perched firmly on his muzzle, and his lips seemed to curve in an almost-arrogant smirk by nature.

"After that pilot crash-landed here, he held out hope of returning home one day, because he had a young son, about three years old, back on Corneria. With a little time, though, he realized he'd have to make a new start, so he married the woman who'd found him, Aileen Maria Coronado Fox, and took her name. He'd already fallen in love with her, a fact made a little easier since his son's mother had died during the birth. They had a daughter together, a young woman by the name of Carmelita Montoya Fox."

Here, James removed his shades and allowed his bright-green gaze to pierce Sly to the core, canting his head to the side.

"My name is James Marcus McCloud Fox, the father of the woman you've spent the last four years of your life running from. I need your help because Andross is going to be coming to Earth soon, with all of his armada."

* * *

A/N: Holy shit, I'm a bastard. Yes, I know, I screwed around with Fox's probable age at the time of his father's disappearance, and yes, I know I merged the explanations for James' 'death' from both the SNES Star Fox and the Lylat Wars (Star Fox 64), and -yes-, damnit, I know I'm not strictly in-character with Sly. That having been said...I wrote this in less than a total of six hours. Hot. Damn.

Oh, yes, and this particular fic goes out to Kit Karamak; it was his Sly and Star Fox fanfiction that percolated this particular idea. My hat's off to you, Kit. May you find your writing as prolific as ever, and thank you for providing me with yet another outlet for my unique creative processes.

After that little side-note, I'm open to ideas for this particular fic. This, and 'Soldier' will be my main focuses for a very long while to come. I've got a few things planned, but I'm going to let you guys give me some more. Have fun, read, and please leave some constructive criticisms in your reviews.


	2. Episode One: Nothing Good About Goodbye

_Buying Time to Steal the Stars_

A Sly Cooper/Star Fox fanfiction

by Matthew Talbain

Co-written with D.V. Fredericks

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or settings within this story unless otherwise noted.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hmm. Not a lot of my Ranma readers have given me the time of day. Ah, well. Again, inspiration of this work goes to Kit Karamak, copious amounts of good food, and the agonizing hours it takes to find all those damn clue bottles.

This chapter takes place roughly one month following the events in the prologue.

**--Episode One: Nothing Good About Goodbye--**

The last two months had been kind, after a fashion, to Interpol's Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox. She had made several high-profile arrests, securing herself a raise and a promotion to Captain, as well as clearing the streets of some serious scum-suckers, always a plus in her book. She'd managed to finally bust the chops of her chauvinistic contemporaries with a vengeance, ridding herself of a large amount of 'admirers' who only really admired her three sizes. With her raise, she'd finally managed to get some time off and enough Euro to spend at the same time to buy herself a new wardrobe and some more furnishings for her apartment.

Indeed, the crowning glory of the last two months was the fact that her career's nemesis, a scoundrel who'd haunted her with his dashing good looks, undeniable skill, and surprising agility since she'd been promoted to Inspector and handed his case, had gone inactive for the longest period of time yet. There was no evidence, whatsoever, of any heists in the two months since the events on Kaine Island. No missing jewels, no stolen chocolate, no jaywalking, breaking or entering, not even so much as a whisper in a library that could be attributed to any member of the Cooper Gang. Panda King, the Guru, even Dimitri had all gone under the radar, and Carmelita knew her criminal. Sly was not the type to sit idle when there were jewels to steal, gangs to frame or expose, and beautiful women to seduce into complacency. Yes, the last two months had been very, very kind indeed to Carmelita Montoya Fox.

Then why did she feel so sick, so rotten? Perhaps it because she knew without a doubt, now, that he cared. Perhaps it was because that cannon couldn't have done anything but kill him, or seriously injure him at best, or perhaps it was because her career was nothing but a footnote, a job, a chore without her criminal, her nemesis, her evil genius to keep her on her toes. Perhaps that was the reason her arrests of the Falcone crime family, the Bonacieux mob, and the defamation and arrest of Sir Arthur Scarbury of Britain's House of Lords, had left a purely foul taste in her mouth.

Or perhaps it was because, at last, she had allowed her heart to admit to itself that it wanted and needed Sly Cooper, and that she missed him. For a month, she'd felt physically ill working on those other cases, feeling that she had betrayed Sly in his moment of need by turning to other, more urgent legal matters. Perhaps it was the comparison her heart drew to moving from one lover to another within the space of but a few weeks, but she still felt the stab of guilt whenever she filed her reports with Chief Barkley. For a whole month, she could scarcely sleep without seeing him contorting in pain as the explosion rocketed him into the air, fueling her with a rage she'd never known before. For one month, she was scared she'd lost him before she'd ever had him. Now she knew, deep in her heart, what he'd meant all those months ago in India when she'd asked who her dance partner was, and he'd replied with his enigmatic 'Why ruin the moment?'.

Then the roses came.

A simple bouquet, the beginning of a slew of gifts that she'd both loved and hated, had been waiting for her at the door to her apartment. On the one hand, she loved them because they bore no indication of who they were from except for _that card_. A simple caricature of a raccoon's face, complete with mask, with his wonderfully tempting handwriting in that devilish blue ink he loved to use. She'd hated them because they came by post, by mail, by _special delivery_. To her, this was an affirmation that her criminal was still injured, too injured to give her the _special delivery_ she knew was more his style. After that first bouquet, she'd half expected to find her underwear missing, or her apartment rearranged _again_, but no, every day yielded a new gift by legal means. She'd absolutely hated him in the past for breaking into her home, for leaving gifts and little notes that flirted with her the way only Sly knew how. For six years, he had gotten under her skin and irritated her like no other could by invading her privacy. Now, she yearned that he would break in just _once_ to let her know he was okay, that he was still her criminal.

These thoughts had consumed her for the last month, and it had finally taken its toll on her work. Chief Barkley had left explicit instructions that if she were to report to the NCB before at least three months had passed, or all of her seven years worth of accrued vacation time had expired, whichever came later, he'd have his new Captain's badge. It was with a sigh of resignation to her fate that Carmelita headed for her apartment, though with a slight smile at the thought of yet another gift waiting for her at her door. It was hard to deal with her feelings and her beliefs, both of which were at a violent war with one another, so she put those thoughts aside. At least she could enjoy his attentions from afar, knowing he was, at the least, still alive.

* * *

Her recent forced leave had her mind in turmoil, which only got worse when she realized that today, there was no gift awaiting her at her doorstep or in her mailbox. Paid time off was approaching blasphemy in the poor girl's mind, and the lack of a gift bearing that oh-so-desperately needed card threw her mind and heart even deeper into turmoil. Thus she failed to notice the bottle of pills resting atop her dining room table until the motion of kicking off her boots while removing her purse caused said bottle to fall over with a shaky rattle. Almost immediately, Carmelita's eyes narrowed, her hands jerking for her missing holster to find the shock pistol she'd relinquished to the armory back at the National Central Bureau. With a low growl, she settled herself into a combat stance and scanned her apartment, her eyes and ears finding nothing immediately distressing, so she picked up the only clue at hand.

The bottle of pills was an orange prescription bottle, and if the label were to be believed, the pills within held a massive dose of painkillers each. Vicodin, and enough of it to kill an elephant, if she knew her painkillers properly. However, she kept herself skeptical of the label; the date was at least three weeks old, and according to the instructions on the label, it should have been more than half empty, not more than three-quarters _full_. With that revelation, she put the pills in her purse and began investigating the den, eyeing a dark blue bomber jacket tossed haphazardly over the back of the sofa. Upon seeing this, she almost relaxed, knowing her father's penchant for coming in unannounced, until she remembered that her father's old bomber jacket was _white_, not blue. She tensed again, looking for an insignia or flight patch of some sort on the sleeves without any luck, though the color tickled the back of her mind.

It was then that she realized she could hear the sound of her shower running. She crept down the hall, trying to discern any other sounds from the bathroom with no success. She reached her bathroom door and, finding it ajar, she reached out with one hand and slowly pushed it open, widening her view of the inner room until she could see a silhouette behind her lace-embossed plastic shower curtain. She crept as silently as she could, forming her hand into a knife edge, until she realized the silhouette was almost completely unmoving, hunched over with its head against the wall just under the spray. Now, more worried than outraged, the vixen reached up and yanked the shower curtain aside with no reaction from the bedraggled, soaked person behind it.

It was Sly.

Immediately, the outrage and anger she'd felt in the past when the piratical, larcenous, smooth-talking Casanova had invaded her home returned with a vengeance. She prepared to grab him, to yank him by his ears and drag his naked tail down to the NCB without so much as a second glance before her bare hind paws met a mild resistance in the form of cloth. She glanced down and blinked, almost owlishly, at the clothes that Sly had presumably discarded before moving into her shower. She bit down her anger with some difficulty at that thought before she lifted a shirt from the floor, a solid dark brown t-shirt with no markings whatsoever save a dark red stain that smelled of blood spreading intermittently across the right side. Dropping the shirt absently into the laundry hamper next to the waste basket, she lifted another article of clothing; pixelated rain-patterned combat trousers. She dropped this blue garment in the laundry, as well, before she lifted the last garment on the floor besides a pair of empty flight boots; Sly's boxers.

It was as though a light suddenly came on in the vixen's head. Her cheeks flamed crimson and she hastily threw the underwear into the hamper, gazing up at the unresponsive raccoon currently soaking himself in the shower. With a gasp, Carmelita remembered the blood on the shirt and hastily moved to shut the shower off, taking Sly's lithely muscled frame in her arms. He was somewhat conscious, at least now, as he threw one arm over Carmelita's shoulder and helped her guide him to her bedroom. Spying a dark gray towel that she realized wasn't her own, the vixen grabbed it and threw it over her shoulder and Sly's arm. With some effort, she half-dragged the dazed and injured raccoon to the one place she knew he'd never been. Her bedroom.

With a momentous effort, she threw the towel over her bed before laying the raccoon upon it, turning quickly to fetch his duffel and more towels. Within a short few minutes, the vixen had the poor young man laying on a veritable bed of towels. Stepping back once she was certain of his comfort, she took in the raccoon's image, trying to find what had dazed him to the point of being completely _un-Sly_. He'd shown no acknowledgment to her presence until she'd begun dragging him from the shower, he'd left his clothes laying all over the bathroom floor, and he'd been standing under a frigid spray of water for only God-knows how long. Her eyes roamed his body searchingly, her teeth digging lightly into her lower lip.

His eyes were closed tightly, and there was no mask over them now. For the first time, Carmelita could see his face, could see all of him without the disguise and the sweater and that damn golden cane of his. His well-muscled chest rose and fell slowly as her eyes raked his handsome features, taking in the slightly-parted slash of his mouth, the furrows in his brow clenching one's eyes tightly created. She reached down and ran her fingertips lightly over his pointed ears, smiling girlishly when they twitched at her attentions. Then her eyes roved lower, taking in the sight of his defined chest and arms almost hungrily, allowing her focus to travel along one his right arm. The limb was laying straight out across the bed, the wet fur laying flat against his skin to reveal thickly-corded muscle capable of felling even the strongest of opponents, yet his hands were delicate, his fingers slender. She blushed as she remembered the gentleness of his hands in hers at that dance, the strength and possessiveness of his grasp as he held her against him. Almost on their own, her eyes danced back to his chest, her tongue darting out quietly to moisten her lips, before her thoughts were suddenly brought to a ragged end.

His left arm was draped across his abdomen, an eight-pack that didn't escape the notice of Carmelita's woefully-repressed libido, his hand clutching at his right side. His mouth was slashed not in the smirk that drove the Inspector crazy, but in a grimace of pain that made her heart stop and her spine grow cold. Lifting his slender hand, she bit back a gasp as she saw what could only have been his injury from Kaine Island. Despite the past two months, the injury had healed somewhat, and made a nasty, hairless scar that branched from his right hip in spider-webbing trenches all along his abdomen and the small of his back. There were even tendrils of scarred gray flesh that slashed up to his chest, a sure sign of direct shrapnel damage. Though the injury showed signs of healing, and healing well, it was readily apparent that Sly had stressed the injury at some point during the night; the edges of a good number of the scars immediately at his right side were splitting, leaking small droplets of blood into Carmelita's fur. Dismayed, the vixen turned to the hall and saw, to her chagrin, a trail of blood droplets dotting her tiled floor from the bathroom to her bedroom. She moved swiftly, grabbing some styptic powder out of the pocket of her jacket and applying it hastily to the entire wound, thanking her lucky stars that she kept herself prepared for an accident on the job. With a small amount of hesitation, she retrieved a roll of bandages and proceeded to wrap her love's waist, hips, and most of his right thigh.

Biting off the bandage and stepping back, her eyes were granted a sight she never, in any of her days, believed she'd see anywhere that wasn't a dream. Her attentions had, despite his pain, awakened a reaction that Carmelita could do nothing but gaze upon. With some trepidation, she leaned in close to the raccoon, wondering if he was awake and aware, but no, he was still only half-conscious. It hit her, almost suddenly, why there had been a bottle of Vicodin on her table, now, and even more, why it was mostly empty. Sly had been prescribed the painkillers to deal with the injury's long-term aftereffects, and unlike most people, he'd been refusing to take them. She could see why in his drugged half-consciousness, his drowsy chocolate eyes and his lack of his usual alertness.

Somehow dragging her eyes away from Sly's extremely potent reaction to her tenderness, she concluded that he was no longer in any immediate danger. The cop in her told her to cuff him and drag him away, and the woman in her told her to turn back and ride him like a cowgirl on the last bronc in a rodeo. She compromised with herself, collecting a small vial and a disposable plastic dropper from inside her jacket pocket. Unsealing them both, she collected some of the blood from the floor and sealed it in the vial before cleaning the floor and collecting the hamper of laundry, sighing softly every five minutes and resisting the urge to run in and kiss the poor raccoon completely senseless every two seconds.

It was an hour and a half later that found Carmelita depositing her laundry and some of Sly's into another empty hamper. She was pondering, for the umpteenth time since she'd begun her household chores, the vial of blood currently resting in a cooler she kept for just that purpose next to the sink. She couldn't legally turn it in, as it was not collected at a crime scene, and she hadn't collected it with a warrant, though Sly had bled in -her- apartment. She could, however, have it scanned for personal reasons. A smile slowly pulled at her lips as she imagined seeing Sly on a permanent basis without his mask, without the flirting without promises, without the tiring chases, without the consequences of having to arrest him and lose him forever. She rested her head in her hands, stifling the sobs and the tears she knew desperately wanted to spill out, but she was stronger than that, she wasn't a weak-willed ninny with a heart of glass.

She nearly leapt from her chair as she felt a pair of strong arms encircle her shoulders from behind, a pair of damp, furry lips caressing the back of her neck. She shivered and stood slowly, leaning back into the embrace before turning around, refusing to raise her gaze to her beloved's own chocolate gaze. She felt his fingertips slowly raising her chin and closed her eyes, she felt his arm tighten around her and responded by clenching her hands in his fur. She felt the caress of his fingertips, the barest hint of claw trailing through downy fur, and her heartbeat quickened. Then she felt his kiss.

The world stopped, and everything was only the connection between them, his lips upon hers. It was soft, almost hesitant, a far cry from the indignity and embarrassment she'd suffered by enjoying the flirty little peck he'd given her two years ago in the Krack-Karov volcano. No, this was no flirtatious gamble, this was a _kiss_, a _b__ésame otra vez y no dejar nunca de_ kiss. He was not running, he was not dodging, he wasn't handcuffing her to a railing. He was kissing her, holding her gently by her shoulders as her own paws slowly fisted in the fur of his chest. She couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't do anything but feel her world slowly crumble as she leaned into him with a kiss of her own, her heart racing as the woman inside of her crowed its victory.

Then it was over, and she felt lost and bereft without a life raft to guide her through the rapids of her own emotions. She found herself leaning up on the balls of her hind paws, her paws balled in tight little fists against the broad expanse of his muscular gray chest. His chocolate eyes were wide, vulnerable, and his breathing was the ragged sort of breathing one could expect from a marathon. She felt her fingers untangle themselves, one by one, from his damp fur and, almost against her will, they began to trace his shoulders, his sides. Her eyes never left his, and what she saw there made everything in her world feel right and pure. She closed her eyes and smiled softly, leaning up on her hind paws to kiss him softly, quickly, a flirty kiss to match his own, before she took his paws in hers. Tonight was her night.

"Carmelita, there's something I need t-"

The raccoon was hushed by the slender finger crossing his lips as the vixen before him smiled brightly, kissing his lips once again as she led him into her bedroom. She released a quiet giggle, a sound completely unfamiliar to him, when she realized he became nervous and uncertain, something completely unfamiliar to _her_, as they crossed the threshold into the center of her privacy. She turned and closed his eyes with the pads of her thumbs, kissing him softly, adoringly, before she stepped away from him, denied him her touch. She waited the briefest of moments to see if he would cheat by opening his eyes before, satisfied, she treated his sensitive ears to the sounds of the rustle of her clothes falling off of her body.

"Carmelita, wait, I ne-"

Silenced again, this time with a kiss, as he felt her bare fur against his own naked form. She felt him stiffen against her, felt his roaming hands suddenly stop as his entire body became tense. She kissed him again, quietly, as she leaned against him, pushing him to the bed.

"Hush now, Sly."

He would not be hushed.

"There's something I need t-"

"_¿Por qué arruinar el momento?_"

She felt his lips still against hers and smiled gently, kissing him lightly, tenderly, as she took his hands and pressed them against her bare form. He needed no encouragement, but his touch was slow, hesitant, and Carmelita could only wonder at him as her own hands, matching the slowness of his, made their own hesitant explorations. She was nervous, certainly, she'd never been with a man before, never found anyone particularly attractive or worthy enough to receive that particular treasure. Sly, however, had always been so confident in his dealings with women, particularly herself, that she'd always assumed he'd bedded no less than half of the women in the world. How, then, could he be so slow, so hesitant and caring in his manual attentions? She opened her eyes and gazed quietly on his face, and her heart very nearly stopped.

His eyes were wide, as if presented with a treasure more valuable than any he'd ever seen in his life. She leaned back a little, her own eyes wide with wonder as she watched the warm brown of his follow her bare form's movements. She couldn't believe it, but it was here before her. He had never been with a woman, there was no other way he could be so speechless, so _un-Sly_ with her now. She felt tears welling up, her heart crying out happily as she felt the perfection of her union with him become ever so much more perfect. She'd never even allowed this possibility in her fantasies of her first time, but here, now, reality was outstripping any fantasies she'd ever allowed herself to indulge in about Sly Cooper.

She dove down, kissing him fiercely as she allowed him to take control, felt herself giving in to the passions that warred within her soul as he claimed her by giving himself to her. The world became a rush of nothing and everything. She heard only his breathing, her breathing, and their hearts beating in tandem. She felt nothing but the heat of his fur against hers and the pressure building deep within herself. She saw nothing but his warm, chocolate eyes piercing her to her soul, and she gave in to him utterly, rocketing into a plateau of emotions brought on by his adoring gaze as he shuddered within her, united in their release.

* * *

He shifted quietly, the waking world creeping slowly upon his stirring senses. It had always been this way, since the day he'd been born into the Cooper legacy. His ears began twitching to a higher alertness than they were used to in sleep before anything else. His muscles began to tense, ready for action, causing his breathing to accelerate to full wakefulness. Then his sense of smell kicked in, a result of his heightened breathing, but today, there was an anomaly. A familiar scent, a scent to which one of his occupation should never awaken. A scent that screamed 'Danger!'. His eyes snapped open.

He winced and bit back a scream as a beam of sunlight caught him directly in his nocturnally-inclined eyes, silently cursing Carmelita's choice in apartments as the night before began to filter through his waking mind. He breathed deep, smiling as the scent of his lover's hair pressed against his sensitive nose. He let his fingertips slowly drift over the sleeping vixen's features as he slowly, cautiously opened his photosensitive eyes, allowing them to adjust to the heightened amount of light in the environment. It occurred much more quickly than he was normally accustomed to, a byproduct of the last month's activities.

As much as he would have loved to remain in bed, admiring the sight of the back of his lover's slim hand pressed cutely against her cheek, he was growing restless again. It was a fact about himself that he cursed, his restlessness. It was something that happened often when there was something important on the line, a danger sense that would blare out of control in the form of his nerves lighting up, his fur standing on end. He knew what it was, knew that it was the coming threat, just as he'd known in the Northern Lights Battery over a year ago that Clockwerk would be returning. He couldn't sit still, not while his heart knew there was something wrong. As much as he wanted to stay here with Carmelita, he had to get up and get moving, he had to do something.

It was an hour later that found a panicky Carmelita discovering her empty bed. At first, she wanted to write the previous night's actions to a dream, or a stress-induced hallucination, but her nudity, the soreness between her thighs, and the strong smell of male musk was too much proof to ignore. For all of a minute, she felt tarnished and ugly, thinking she had given herself to Sly in one of his flirty moods, she felt anger, rage, and despair. She felt used, lost, and alone.

She prepared to crawl out of bed, despondent, when the soft sound of paws padding down her hallway perked her attention. She quickly grabbed her sheets and blushed violently as she drew them around her, clutching them tightly to cover her bare fur from the gaze of the new intruder. She sighed with relief, a soft, happy sound, when she saw the silver-gray back of her lover entering the room, nudging her bedroom door open with his tail as he carried in a loaded tray. Carmelita's eyes widened visibly as she made out the bandages crisscrossing Sly's back and midsection; they were all stained with small amounts of dried blood.

"You know, you're supposed to be laying down when you get breakfast in bed."

The soft voice cut through her embarrassed musings, causing her to yelp cutely and launch herself into her bed, a brilliant blush suffusing her orange fur. She peeked out from under the covers, taking in the sight of her gray-furred lover. He had his customary smirk in place once again, but he seemed more... more peaceful. His eyes were calm and neutral instead of slanted in thought. His smile was more natural, his body language was more comfortable. She allowed the covers to fall, smiling gratefully as the raccoon laid out a tray with some eggs and sausage, a dish she enjoyed very much. Her brow furrowed slightly as she wondered how she knew this about her, but let it go, content to sip a cup of coffee as she watched him climb back into bed, carrying the tray with one arm. She smiled as she watched him smooth out the thin, black shorts he'd apparently grabbed from his gym bag, and settled in with little hesitation. It seemed Sly wanted to pamper her this morning, and she would not complain.

She tilted her head back, the pleasant emotions of the previous night quickly returning in force, banishing her nightmares and reservations this morning. He hadn't vanished, hadn't used her. The magic of her first time, her first and only surrender to the man she loved, was still pure and blessed. She smiled softly as she parted her lips, eagerly accepting the offering of sustenance from her dark-eyed attendant. She coiled her tail around her chest as she leaned against his shoulder, listening raptly to the rumble of his breath in his chest.

Some time later, the vixen finally decided to overcome her lassitude and invited her companion to shower with her. It felt wonderful to Interpol's new Captain to share her home with the gray-furred felon, and she capitalized on the close quarters of the shower and the water bill's junction with the apartment's rent to spend more quality time with her man. Her man. The thought alone sent shivers through the femme's frame even as she felt her lover shudder against her. This moment was pure heaven, and Carmelita let her beau know just what she thought of him at that moment with a searing, deep kiss. She leaned against him as his slender hands began to bend themselves to the reason they'd gotten into the shower in the first place, which inevitably led to more 'soul-searching' activities.

Reluctantly, the duo climbed out of the shower. Sly had elected to remain within the damp, but warm, environs of the bathroom, mainly because his duffel bag hadn't been moved during Carmelita's cleaning rampage the night before. Carmelita, on the other hand, wrapped herself in a towel and padded back to her bedroom, feeling rather foolish about the towel. Sly had already seen everything, anyway, and the only thing damp about her now was her indigo hair. Compromising, she wrapped the towel around her long hair and proceeded to dress in a baggy pair of sweatpants and a tank top, foregoing any form of undergarment for the moment, as she set herself to her daily toilette in front of her vanity.

She was in the middle of putting her hair in its customary braid when the phone rang.

* * *

Sly was dazed. He couldn't believe that last night and today were anything but a dream. He'd broken into Carmelita's apartment immediately after she'd left for work the day before to leave her a little gift in the form of her very own personal servant for a few days. However, climbing that pipe to the fire escape on the building across from Carmelita's had opened the scars in his side a little more than he'd expected, and he'd been forced to pop one of -those- pills before he climbed into her shower to make himself a bit more presentable to deal with the pain. It wouldn't be cricket, after all, for the personal servant to snap and groan at its master. Unfortunately, the pill had had the somewhat-expected result of knocking him senseless, as all of its brothers had done before it, for several hours.

Even more shocking, however, was that Carmelita had come home early, and found him before he'd made himself at all presentable, and that he'd slumped over in the shower as awkwardly as he had could only have made the scars in his side worse over time, rather than better, and as the beautiful policewoman helped the mostly-insensate Cooper out of the shower and into a bed, he wished that the damn nanites Bentley had pumped him full of would just hurry the hell up so he could have his skin back.

The woman had been very gentle, and the slowly-awakening raccoon couldn't help but react to her gentle ministrations in typical male fashion. However, he drifted off to true sleep after she'd bandaged the wounds properly, and she was gone when he finally came to his senses. He'd found her at her table, slumped and seeming very much in thought, and he could not help but wrap his arms around her and begin kissing the base of her neck. He'd promised himself he'd tell her how he felt, what had driven him to earn the horrible scar that took up most of his right side, but she wouldn't let him. She'd taken possession of the night, and led him to the most heavenly, wonderful night of his life. He couldn't help but smile knowing he'd given his innocence to the woman he loved.

With a content sigh, he gazed down at his half-filled duffel and set himself to donning his only spare set of clothing. Upon finishing this task, he turned to look at himself in the mirror, nodding to himself softly as he took in his appearance.

A light blue t-shirt stretched tightly over his athletically-muscled torso, baring his arms all the way up to his biceps. His eight-pack could be clearly seen against the tight shirt, which was tucked into a pair of blue combat pants in his favorite blue rain camouflage pattern. He'd tucked the legs of the pants into his heavy flight boots, and his hands were now covered by long, fingerless blue gloves. He'd fluffed his hair up a little, liking the way it tended to curl slightly over his forehead when he didn't wear his hat for days and days on end, and he sighed quietly, but happily, when he realized that Carmelita had finally seen him without his mask. Not that it made much of a difference, considering that his fur naturally darkened to black in the pits of his eyes, a trait that helped absorb excess light and suppress reflection into his sensitive orbs.

Satisfied, he fished a pair of dogtags from his duffel and fastened them around his neck before moving into the living room to retrieve his blue flight jacket. It had replaced his sweater almost a month ago as his favorite thing to wear, and he smiled to himself as he drew it on. Finally, with the jacket suppressing the noise from the tags and his body still enough not to rustle his clothes, his sensitive ears picked up the sounds of a somewhat-fitful conversation coming from the bedroom. Having been born a thief, and being concerned for his beloved's welfare, he crept into the hallway, managing to muffle the sounds of his footsteps with years of practice and natural-born agility.

"Yes, mama...you know how I feel."

"No. Mama, you...yes, mama, I know you didn't raise me to be a fool."

"Of course I can't trust him! He's a thief, a criminal! He takes what he wants and leaves me to pick up the pieces! Do you know what they think of me down at headquarters?"

"How do you think he'd feel if I just woke up next to him one day and slapped the cuffs on him? I'm a cop, mama, I'd have to arrest him at some point!"

"That doesn't matter, mama. It can't work out. It won't work out. I'll only ever be just a fling to him."

He couldn't believe his ears. He slumped against the door as his entire world came crashing down around his ears. She couldn't trust him? She couldn't love him because he was a criminal, because he was a thief? No, no, it couldn't be true. But then, this was Carmelita. Her world was black and white, her world was law and order on one side, and everything else was heretical thinking. Unaware that he'd caught her attention, he turned and collected his duffel bag, moving into the main room to pack up the few things she'd gathered and left on her sofa for him the night before. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a slim limited-band radio, a more compact version of Bentley's binocucom, dialing into its main frequency out of habit. He waited long enough only for the voice on the other end to squawk its receipt of his transmission.

"Yeah. This is Renegade. I'm cutting my vacation short, Chief. Can I get an immediate pick-up?"

His control was amazing in that he never let his emotions show, save for the uncharacteristic failure to even wait for an answer as he shut the compacucom off and set himself packing his things. As he did so, he realized Carmelita had followed him into the room, a worried look on her face, but he ignored her. She'd probably even heard him on the compacucom. As he tucked his cleaned uniform into the duffel, he unearthed something that had become a bit of a relic to the raccoon. He lifted up one of the blue cards he'd left at the site of each and every one of his famous heists, and tears welled up in his eyes as he realized what his years as a thief had cost him. Certainly, it had led him to where he was now, a hero in the making, the man who would help save the world even if the world didn't know it yet. But he'd lost Carmelita, the woman he loved more than anything else in the world, before he'd ever really had her.

He crumpled the card in his hands and tossed it, without looking, into the trash can in Carmelita's kitchen, turning to the closed balcony door and walking slowly, deliberately. He opened the doors and stepped out into the morning air, shielding his eyes by turning to face away from the morning sun. He looked at Carmelita with all of the sadness of his broken heart rising into his eyes, and he saw her recoil from the pain and betrayal etched there, nearly dropping the phone she still held to her ear as she did so.

"I'm sorry, Carmelita. I'd always hoped that you could see that I was never truly on the wrong side of the law. I'd always thought that maybe someday you could trust me. I can see now that I was wrong."

He closed his eyes tightly, ignoring the tears that escaped his iron hold on his emotions. His sensitive ears picked up the high-pitched whine he'd become very, very familiar with over the past few weeks, and he picked up the heirloom cane he'd left strapped to the bottom of his duffel bag in preparation. He looked one last time at Carmelita, taking in her half-dressed form, the beauty of her striking at his soul even now, after she'd torn his heart out.

"I came here to tell you, Carmelita, that I've been in love with you since the day I met you, but I can see now that you wouldn't accept that from someone like me. I promise you, Miss Fox, that I'll never darken your life again from this day forward. You'll never have to see me again. I'm sorry for all the trouble."

With the last bit of energy he had, he leapt off the balcony, disappearing below the vixen's line of sight as a sudden wind kicked up, tearing the towel from her hair. With a gasp, she rushed forward, intent to try to save his life, only to discover that he was gone. She stared down at the street seven stories below, wondering how the raccoon could simply vanish like that, even as the realization of what had happened set in. She slumped to the ground against the balcony's rail, sobbing softly as she answered her mother's worried questions.

"Mama...he heard me...Sly heard me talking to you. Oh, mama, he just left me. He leapt off the balcony and...and he's gone, mama. The look in his eyes...mama, I'm such a fool..."

The only sound that Aileen Fox could discern from that point on was the sound of her daughter muffling her sobs into her hands, the forgotten phone dropping to the cold stone of the balcony's floor.

* * *

A black hole opened ominously in the curtain of darkness that was the space just outside Upper Mars orbit. Four sleek ships, silver in body and red in trim, quickly lanced from the inky blackness, their afterburners leaving four thin blue streaks against the cold black backdrop of outer space, like four claws raking through a sheet of dark velvet.

"All aircraft report!"

"No damage acquired en route."

"My red rose remains as beautiful as ever."

"Hmph! My grandfather's genius reigns supreme!"

Were it possible for vacuum to carry sound, a sinister snarl could be heard as the four fighters streaked through space with towards a single, common goal.

The planet Earth.

* * *

A/N: Announcement time! I've finally updated this, and I'm seriously considering this fic to be my strongest work yet. Not only that, but I've managed to acquire a co-author for this story, a good friend you will all come to know only as D.V.F.

In any case, read and review, and tell me what you think!


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